The Spice-Box of Earth
The Spice-Box of Earth is Canadian poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen's 2nd collection of poetry. History The Spice-Box of Earth was published in 1961 by McClelland and Stewart. The book received rave reviews and sold out its 1st printing.Jason Schneider, Whispering Pines: The Northern Roots of American Music, Toronto: ECW, 2010. Google Books, Web, Dec. 16, 20189. The book brought Cohen a measure of early literary acclaim. Cohen biographer Ira Nadel states that "reaction to the finished book was enthusiastic and admiring,' adding that "critic Robert Weaver found it powerful and declared that Cohen was 'probably the best young poet in English Canada right now.'"Nadel, Ira B. Various Position: A Life of Leonard Cohen. Pantheon Books: New York, 1996. Following The Spice-Box of Earth, Cohen retreated for several years to the treeless Argolic island of Hydra in Greece, where he began work on the more angular, abrasive poems collected in Flowers for Hitler in 1964. Writing Canadian Encyclopedia: "The Spice-Box of Earth was the volume which established Leonard Cohen's reputation as a lyric poet; it remains the most popular single volume of his verse. The language is rich, sensuous and beautiful, but many of Cohen's darker themes - victimization, loss, cruelty - are nonetheless present. The poems deal with the role of the poet, with his inheritance of the Jewish tradition, and of course with love. Among the best-known poems are 'As the Mist Leaves No Scar' and the lovely 'For Anne', which Cohen nominates as his own favourite poem. But perhaps the most searching poem in the volume is the darkly symbolic "You Have the Lovers', which sets out in concise form the themes later explored in Cohen's novel Beautiful Losers."Stephen Scobie, "The Spice-Box of Earth," Canadian Encyclopedia. Web, Nov. 13, 2016. Contents #A Kite Is a Victim #After the Sabbath Prayers #Gift #The Flowers that I Left in the Ground #If It Were Spring #There Are Some Men #You All in White #I Wonder How Many People in This City #It Is Late Afternoon #An Orchard of Shore Trees #Go by Brooks #Before the Story #Alone the Master and the Slave Embrace #Twelve O'Clock Chant #To a Teacher #I Have Not Lingered in European Monasteries #It Swings, Jocko #Credo #Sing to Fish, Embrace the Beast #Inquiry into the Nature of Cruelty #You Have the Lovers #When I Uncovered Your Body #The Adulterous Wives of Solomon #The Sleeping Beauty #Owning Everything #Song to Make Me Still #The Priest Says Goodbye #A Poem to Detain Me #Angels #The Cuckold's Song #Morning Song #The Unicorn Tapestries #The Boy's Beauty (for Betty) #The Girl Toy #Dead Song #Call You Grass #My Lady Can Sleep #Travel #I Have Two Bars of Soap #Brighter than Our Sun #Celebration #As the Mist Leaves No Scar #Beneath My Hands #I Long to Hold Some Lady #Now of Sleeping #Song ("I almost went to bed") #Song #For Anne #Last Dance at the Four Penny #Song for Abraham Klein #Good Brothers #Summer Haiku (For Frank and Marian Scott) #Priests 1957 #Out of the Land of Heaven (for Marc Chagall) #Absurd Prayer #Prayer of My Wild Grandfather #Isaiah (For G.C.S.) #The Genius #Lines from My Grandfather's Journal Table of contents courtesy A Concordance to the Poems, Prose and Songs of Leonard CohenThe Spice-Box of Earth, The Books of Leonard Cohen, A Concordance to the Poems, Prose and Songs of Leonard Cohen. Web, Nov. 13, 2016. See also References External links *''The Spice-Box of Earth'' at the Canadian Encyclopedia Category:1961 books Category:Poetry by Leonard Cohen Category:McClelland & Stewart books Category:Canadian books Category:Books by Leonard Cohen